Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic Is Getting An Unreal Engine Remake

There's a remake of BioWare's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in the making by Poem Studios called Apeiron. The game is running on the Unreal Engine 4 and the team have been remaking all the textures, models, assets and lighting in Epic's latest game engine.

Gamespot is reporting that Poem Studios has opened up a website for their project and have already rolled out a FAQ for the remake. The game will work on top of the original Star Wars: The Old Republic, so it's requested that gamers still have a legitimate copy of BioWare's old title.

They plan on adding new missions, new companions, new items and new worlds to the game, along with an improved heads up display and an overhauled inventory. The images they released so far are of the early goings of the game aboard the Endar Spire, the ship that was attacked at the start of Knights of the Old Republic that players eventually have to escape from.

The project is really, really early on. In fact if you head on over to the official website and scope out some of the media, you'll see that while the player models are complete they aren't holding any weapons. As noted on Gamespot, there will be a first and third-person play mode available for gamers to utilize throughout their adventures.

Poem Studios have so far been live-streaming their development of the project over on Twitch and they're currently accepting volunteers to help out on the project. At the moment they aren't accepting donations but they may change some time in the near future.

A lot of the comments on the Gamespot article quip that Electronic Arts and Disney Interactive may likely swoop in with a cease and desist notice to shut the project down, which has been the case for so many other fan-made projects. Others pointed out that Konami has so far let the Metal Gear Solid Unreal Engine 4 remake progress in development, so maybe EA and Disney will allow Poem Studios to finish their Knights of the Old Republic remake.

Over on the site's FAQ, the indie devs mention that they legally they hope they're in the green because it's a not-for-profit project and they have no intentions on infringing on the rights of BioWare, Electronic Arts or Disney. They cite the Command & Conqueror indie project Renegade X, which is a third-person shooter made with the UDK, and they also cite Black Mesa as another project based on an established IP, Half-Life to be exact, as a game that was allowed to be made with the blessings of Valve. However, in both those cases the publishers were okay with those games being made. While Poem Studios may be calling Apeiron an intense Knights of the Old Republic modification, the reality is that we've seen studios like Warner Bros shut down Lords of the Ring mods for Skyrim, as well as Square Enix shutting down fan-made projects for things like a Chrono Trigger, as reported by Destructoid.

Whether or not this particular project gains a leg to stand on is completely up in the air, but the community will be looking on with keen interest on this particular remake using the Unreal Engine 4.